1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a clamp, and more particularly, it relates to an adjustable clamp having a plurality of adjustable clamp templates and also having clamp and template areas which are adjustable.
2. Description of Related Art
In the sewing industry, a common repetitive function is to sew a label onto a workpiece of material. For example, this would be a common procedure when sewing a manufacturer's label onto a workpiece, such as a shirt or jacket. A clamp was typically used to force the central portion of the label against the workpiece and also against the sewing surface of the sewing machine. The sewing machine then moved the workpiece and label under an oscillating needle in order to sew the label onto the workpiece with a predetermined stitch pattern. The clamp was also used to secure either the label or the workpiece against the sewing surface so that the predetermined stitch pattern could be sewn thereon. The clamps of the prior art had a defined clamping surface which could not be adjusted to accommodate labels of different shapes or to accommodate different predetermined stitch patterns. Accordingly, a user was required to maintain an inventory of clamps for each workpiece shape and for each predetermined stitch pattern. Maintaining such an inventory of clamps was expensive.
It was also not uncommon that a workpiece had to be sewn with two separate stitch patterns. This was often done by providing a clamp having two fixed template or cut-out areas which corresponded to the two separate stitch patterns. If it was desired to change, for example, the distance between the two cut-out areas, then a different clamp had to be used. Also, if it was desired to add a sewing template or to adjust the shape of the sewing template, this could not be done easily. This also resulted in the user having to maintain an inventory of clamps.
Still another problem is that the programmable sewing machine had to be shut down whenever the adjustable clamp had to be changed due to a change in either the predetermined stitch pattern or the workpiece shape. This downtime resulted in lost production and labor time.